Mursi Family
Omo Valley, Ethiopia 2013
A Mursi family stands for a portrait. I particularly like the way they have painted their bodies. The circles traced on the hand prints is a nice touch. And they way the diagonal hand prints on the man on the right are echoed on his cheeks…artistic.
Notice also that the father has his hand on his son’s shoulder and that son holds his younger brother’s hand. Shades of Irving Penn! The more I look at this the more I like it. This one is definitely going to be printed large.
Look at those feathers in the headband of the man on the right. I love those! I should have zoomed in for a close up. But all was not well in the Valley of the Omo at that particular moment. The family were quite proud of themselves and felt that the going rate of payment was not sufficient for them. There was an altercation, resulting in their casting our offering scornfully to the ground. But we could be scornful ourselves and we turned on our heel and left.
Later, they reconsidered and asked us to photograph them again. To be honest, I think they couldn’t tell us apart and didn’t know we were the two women they had ‘dissed’. We refused to shoot them again, but that was a mistake. I wish I had my chance again.
To have your chance at photographing families like this contact: Osman at www.soratours.com